Arabella's Adventures is my Google Innovator project that came about this year. I designed (and published) the first of a technology themed picture book series; aimed at targeting key digital ideas with junior students. I really wanted to find a way to help increase awareness and skills with junior students, as quite often teachers are so busy with the core skills, safe digital practices are either left out, or taught in a limited capacity. So Arabella's Adventures was formed!

Find all the information about Arabella's Adventures below and on the website!

This year I have been working with teachers in my school to up skill them around digital competency and fluency in all areas. This is also my scope for my Masters project which I am currently studying (due to finish June, 2020). 
As part of up skilling teachers, some feedback was around a crash course, or online lessons that they could follow to build key skills around Google Apps. There are already lots out there (some are paid/free) and it really is about making one that best fits your needs. So I have put together the beginning of Mrs Priestley ICT online courses - a place where you can access a targeted learning around key digital themes. 

With more courses to come, I hope that this is another avenue teachers can take to learn. As always, this is always my take and interpretation of the learning and I am no way an expert. If I can help one teacher learn something new from my courses then I am happy! 

I created my templates on powerpoint with a fancy font and colour. The fonts I brought were off teachers pay teachers that I uploaded onto my computer to be able to use. You then save your text and background as an image, and upload it onto google keep as an 'add image'. It will then save it to the top of your note. 

There are lots of other great ideas floating around the internet but I hope this helps unpack it easily on how you can make it pretty yourself. 

Google forms is a simple way of involving technology into your classroom. It can be used to promote technology use in a meaningful, yet exciting way to involve students and enhance engagement. A simple way is by using it to gather student voice! This google form asks students which one they prefer - a cat or a dog. Sure you could just ask students for a show of hands; but by asking them this through a google form it could be integrated as part of your programme in a tumble, discussion time, or checkpoint that students could complete before the learning. 

I have lots of previous website posts about google forms with examples and links to ways you could use it in your classroom. This is just one way, with there being MANY different ways you could use it. Just search 'google forms' on my website to bring up all the website posts. 

Want a follow up activity for persuasive writing and this google form? Download this free template below!

Arabella's Adventures is my Google Innovator project from the #SYD19 Google Innovator academy. We needed to look at a problem we were facing, and think of a way of solving it. My problem was around junior students not receiving much teacher time with digital technologies and key skills to help them become confident and competent users. So I thought I would target this goal through a series of child directed picture books for students and teachers to use. 

Here is the first ebook of the series - How to take care of iPads. 

Get this ebook at the low cost of $3.00 for an introductory price!! This is for the first 100 customers so get in quick!! Find it here and get your copy!!

Last week I so incredibly fortunate to attend and present at the Digital Fluency Hui in Hawera, Taranaki. I delivered the keynote and four workshops around different areas. The aim being to build teacher competency and skill in anything digital; providing as much as I can with others!

I really wanted to share my presentations with you so here are the links to the workshops I ran. If you have any questions or want any further information please let me know. 

Once done, students simply copy the information in their google docs over to the google form template. This is easy to do as it notes which part of your story would go in which section by the 'option 1' or 'option 2' heading. Students simply follow through the options as they go through the story. To check out the planning has gone, simply click on preview and it will show you what the story will look like. 

This activity is a great way to get students to use digital technologies and ICT in the classroom in a meaningful way to create a great outcome. These templates will help you complete this learning activity and guide your students to complete a choose your own adventure story! 
To see an example story, click here to view my practice one!

Thanks to Mari Venturino and Mr Davola for the links to the ISTE resources and templates. 

Of course you can make the sign up google form as easy or as complicated as you would like. You would then generate the google form to populate into a sheets tracking grid so you can see who will be coming on which day. This is what you can print out for students to attend, or make it into a pretty graph! 

​Check out this example to see how it works >> http://bit.ly/workshopformsexample

I saw this online a few weeks ago and immediately had to do it for myself! Who doesn't love pretty stuff on their background notes right?
So straight into it, I created my font backgrounds, saved them as images and uploaded them to my Google Keep notes! Simple, easy and colourful - perfect for my obsessiveness over cute colourful things! 

Check out the short 3 minute video below on how you can make yours!